Big Vibe

The Canadian pop-punk outfit Seaway offers a gloriously hooky fourth album with 2020s Big Vibe. The album follows up 2017s Vacation and is the groups first since the departure of singer/guitarist Patrick Carleton. Recorded in Toronto with Anton DeLost, Big Vibe is an exuberant production that finds the band drawing upon an ebullient 70s and early 80s power pop influence. While theres a carefree energy to much of Big Vibe, the album feels like a subtle move away from the nervy punk of the bands early years and further towards a mainstream rock sophistication theyve always hinted at. Certainly, the absence of Carleton means the bands dual-lead-singer approach is no longer part of their equation. That said, they more than make up for the change by zeroing in on singer/guitarist Ryan Lockes exuberant songs that mix early 80s rock style with 90s indie rock sensibility. Most emblematic of the tonal shift is the title track, an infectious anthem that perfectly captures the one-amazing-summer/80s-teen-movie-soundtrack feel of the whole album. Elsewhere, on cuts like Still Blue and Wild Things, the bands crisp, overdriven guitars and brightly attenuated melodies evoke the classic Ray-Bans and Vans energy of bands like the Cars and Cheap Trick. We also get the yearning, Rick Springfield-style romance of Mrs. David and the 90s Green Day-meets-Nada Surf of Pathetic. With Big Vibe, Seaway have made an album that builds upon everything theyve done before but pushes them in a bigger, more ambitious direction. ~ Matt Collar